I9I3.] BARTON— PATRIARCHAL NARRATIVES 185 



be taken by the historian at its face vahie; (3) there is the mytho- 

 logical, or pseudo-scientific school, which has become enamored of 

 the scientific method from afar, but has never undergone the training 

 in judgment necessary to the application of scientific principles. The 

 members of this school fall into two groups. There are those who, 

 like Winckler, dissolve Solomon and everything before him into 

 forms of Babylonian myths, while others, like Jensen and Zimmern, 

 resolve most of the Biblical characters into myths. Under Jensen's 

 touch every important character of the Old Testament and Apoc- 

 rypha, as well as Jesus and Paul, become simply forms of the myths 

 of the Gilgamesh epic. In view of the division of scholarship into 

 these three camps, it is clear that a scientific student of history must 

 take his stand with the first group. He cannot refuse to use the 

 scientific method upon sources simply because they are sacred, nor 

 can he exercise the liberty of dissolving into myth events attested 

 by documents that are nearly contemporary with the events described. 

 The historical student of the sacred records finds, perhaps, his 

 most difficult task the proper appraisement of the patriarchal narra- 

 tives. Scientific criticism has shown that the records of these nar- 

 ratives have been drawn verbatim from three documents, the earliest 

 of which dates from the ninth century B.C. and the latest from the 

 middle of the fifth pre-Christian century. The demonstration of 

 this is so convincing that it has won the consent of nearly all the 

 scientific experts. There is probably no hypothesis concerning any 

 modern science which commands so nearly the assent of all who can 

 rightly be called experts in the subject as the so-called Graf-Well- 

 hausen hypothesis of the origin of the Pentateuch. The public is 

 sometimes deceived by the cries of those whose hopes are greater 

 than their knowledge ; but were the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis a 

 person, it might adopt the words which Mark Twain is said once to 

 have cabled from Europe to a friend : " The report of my death is 

 greatly exaggerated." The historical student of the patriarchal nar- 

 ratives must, then, take the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis as his 

 starting point. But let him follow the sound historical maxim and 

 prefer the testimony of the earliest document, he is still in per- 

 plexity, for the oldest document, the so-called J document, is at least 



